The introduction in August of legislation regarding the right to disconnect from work has caused much discussion in various schools and other workplaces; listening to people鈥檚 opinions on the new laws has been fascinating.

The wording of the legislation (accessible on the Fair Work Ombudsman鈥檚 website) explains that 鈥淭he right to disconnect protects employees who refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact鈥� outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable鈥�. It goes on to state that various factors must be considered when deciding what qualifies as unreasonable, including the reason for the contact, the way in which it鈥檚 made, the level of disruption it causes the employee, and the employee鈥檚 level of responsibility.

Now I鈥檓 no lawyer and perhaps I鈥檓 viewing this a little simplistically, but this doesn鈥檛 seem particularly complicated to me. If a member of my team is sick and I text them after my 5pm meeting to check they鈥檙e OK, that鈥檚 reasonable. If I establish that they鈥檙e really quite ill and then proceed to phone them six times during the day to demand they complete various tasks that they are actually too sick to finish, that鈥檚 unreasonable. If a Sunday bushfire reaches the edges of Cresswell Road and the School is in danger and I can鈥檛 find my keys to get in and grab a hose while we await the fire brigade, calling a senior member of staff who lives round the corner and asking if I can borrow theirs is reasonable. Waking them regularly on a nightly basis because I鈥檓 locked out and can鈥檛 get into my office is unreasonable.

No doubt there will arise situations which are less black and white than those described above, but what the new legislation does not mean is that all teachers can now stop work at 3:15 each day and disconnect until 8am the following morning. Teaching has never been a job where this is possible and it is no surprise to most members of the public that many aspects of our work can only be done outside class time (marking work, planning excursions, preparing lesson plans, giving feedback, writing assessments, auditioning students, offering extra help and writing reports, to name just a few). Using the test of reasonableness, it would be unreasonable for a teacher to say they won鈥檛 be marking any of their Year 12 mock exams this year because they plan to disconnect in the time they would normally carry out that task; it is reasonable for me to expect a teacher to mark those exams within a sensible period of time, even though I know that will involve working outside school hours. I have no doubt that teachers will continue to show the levels of dedication that they do because they know the importance of their work and they understand the genuine difference that they make.

But staff wellbeing cannot be ignored. We all need a balance between the work we put in and the time we have to refresh ourselves to ensure that we can keep on working. At Carmel, we realised long before the creation of the new legislation that late night emails were an issue. Sometimes they caused staff to worry about the content of the email overnight and there were occasions when, the following day, some senders clearly regretted either what they had said during the dark hours, or the way in which they had expressed themselves. We put together a communications policy to make our expectations regarding emailed communications explicit and asked parents and staff to not send emails after 7pm.

For parents and staff who find the evening the best time for them to sort out their emails, using the 鈥榙elayed delivery鈥� or 鈥榯imed send鈥� function means that they can write the email at a time convenient to them and arrange for it to be sent automatically the following morning. We do our best to respond to emails within 48 business hours and have reinforced the message that email is not the appropriate forum for matters which require an immediate response. For emergencies during the school day, parents should phone reception - during the day, teachers spend most of their time in class with the children, not monitoring their emails, which is exactly as it should be.

I have emphasised with staff that my recommendation is that they do not have access to their school email on their mobile phones. Whether or not they are going to act on the content of an email immediately, it takes up rent free space in their mind and interrupts the time that they should be spending away from work issues.

Mike House鈥檚 Unshakeable article this week talked about leaders who add to their emails 鈥淚 choose to do a lot of my work after hours and send lots of emails at night or the weekend. I don鈥檛 expect my staff to respond 鈥︹�� Mike pointed out that even if you tell your staff they don鈥檛 have to respond, by virtue of emailing them you are modelling a different message. I like to think that at 91抖阴 we have the balance about right and thank everyone in the community who respects staff time by not emailing during Shabbat, chaggim and after 7pm.

I hope that this weekend you are able to disconnect from your work and enjoy your time with friends and family.

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Julie Harris

Principal

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